makes sense
There is no point in setting up a factory like for accessories when I know that both of them are happy without a fancy cover.
Nokia has posted the templates 3D printer users need to make their own shell or case for its Lumia 820 smartphone. The mobe is already designed to swap some of its plastic parts, with the rear plate available as inert plastic or one of Nokia's inductive charging gadgets. Three different batches of files are offered to DIY …
Sounds like Nokia are trying to play the long game.
Android got into the market by appealing nerd/geek/[insert other stereotype] segment of the market. Some of this segment will be software engineers, which gets them interested in the App side.
So they sneakily had a dev base, before the system went mainstream, this is where WinPho 7/8 falls down. Windows Phone has been in the market for ages, and it's predecessors were absolute garbage. 7 and 8 are an improvement, but they missed the boat.
The only thing that may save them is that Apple appears to have lost it's direction.
The fundamental weakness in this concept is that the steam has run out on the 3D printing fad, simply because the stuff you get out of the affordable home machines is so crap and the amount of effort required to get these machines working correctly, far outweighs the benefits.
There will be resurgence when the off the shelf tech gets to an affordable price point, but to me this is a cliche headline marketing bumpf. Rather than a solution to a non-existent problem.
>There will be resurgence when the off the shelf tech gets to an affordable price point, but to me this is a cliche headline marketing bumpf.
Agreed, when the Nokia rep put out the idea, he suggested the user making "a waterproof, glow in the dark case with a bottle opener". No.
The home user is often better off with some epoxy for making little things that. Kydex is a handy formable sheet material- well suited for making dashboard cradles for phones etc. Loving Sikaflex at the moment- a very strong adhesive and sealant, remains permanently flexible after curing.
I'm still assuming that no more people will own a 3D printer than currently own that hobbyist's favourite, a Dremel hand drill. I can currently see more practical uses for a desktop laser cutter for thin materials than a 3D printer in the home- larger functional objects, stencils, jigs... and yes, bottle openers.
I fail to see what's disruptive or innovative about this announcement. For a start, do you have any idea how much it would cost in terms of machinery and materials to produce a decent quality casing (i.e. to the same standard as the original) via a 3D printer? To give you a hint, it'll be several orders of magnitude higher than buying a moulded, third party case, via eBay.
No, this is merely a cynical marketing ploy whereby Nokia hope to drum up sales of their phone through the use of some carefully chosen buzzwords in a press release.
>To give you a hint, it'll be several orders of magnitude higher than buying a moulded, third party case, via eBay.
That's very true, if thousands of other people buy the same case. Which they probably will- I can't imagine someone having case requirements that are so off-the-wall that they are thy only person who have them.
Now, is some someone going to print a prototype case with a chorded-keyboard built in or what?
>Now, is some someone going to print a prototype case with a chorded-keyboard built in or what?
Just found someone has done just that and implemented it. His blog is here:
http://srimech.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/chorded-keyboard-for-mobile-phones.html
He wouldn't need the external battery if he owned an Android phone with USB OTG support...
Just because you can't see how it is innovation, doesn't mean it isn't.
It's something no other company has done. Whether anyone picks it up and does something useful with it we will see over time, but meantime, we should applaud any company that does something unusual and new, however small.
If you don't understand that, perhaps you should just stick to Apple products :-)
GJC
This is not really aimed at consumers at home to make them, it is for small local businesses to offer services.
So you can walk into a shop and have your own logo or image on a case.
Honestly, Barry you have no imagination. Don't ever start a business whatever you do.
None of the rep rap / makerbot printers have anything like the precision to churn out a phone case which doesn't look really awful and have serious issues snapping shut. The effort might have greater success if it spurs Chinese manufacturers to spew out hundreds of colourful phone covers like they used to do in the days of yore for the 3210 and similar models.
it sounds like a nice idea from Nokia but i think the problem will be the percentage of people who own a 3D printer and also a Lumia is going to be about 0.000001% of the population.
Hopefully in might encourage all manufacturers to do this in the future though for when 3D printers do become more common.
So providing they haven't got any prejudices against NoWin. (e.g. upset about a previous OS being dropped like a hot potato) there could be a market, and given how bad things are for Nokia smart phones, any market has to be good.
Otherwise they will just wait a few weeks until an Android firm does the same.
3d printing is ideal for low volume runs and you can print via services like shapeways.
Having accurate 3d models for a phone case could open up a range of cases that you'd never produce in volume - and I'm thinking work type applications. E.g. a clipboard which has the phone case as part of it to hold it steady, a case with loops to allow it to be held securely by a lanyard, etc...
For some corporates it could also be attractive to be able to design and print their own custom case with logo.
Yours is the only suggestion for a use case for 3D printing that has made any sense whatsoever - congratulations!
As others have said: your typical hobbyist 3D printer won't be able to hold the tolerances needed to make a case work - you need a professional grade printer for that. The cost of printing a case with such a printer exceeds the cost of finding the case you want, ordering it, and having it shipped to you.
But yes, if you are making a clipboard with the phone slotted in to it, or a custom dashboard inlay, or other ideas beyond a simple snap-over case, then this does become brilliant, and I hope other phone makers will see fit to follow suit.
It might be worth looking at a material called Kydex for phone holders... it most common hobbyist application is for gun holsters and knife sheaves- the sheet of Kydex is heated and formed around the object it will house. When cooled it retains flexibility and can be sanded etc.
I'm sick of hearing the same old shite on the site.
WinPhone8 is great. I don’t care that the world is full of sheepish "people" who have no opinion of their own, following the crowd and waffling the same crap time and time again, with 99% not having any hands on experience.
The first person to mention apps needs killed. Who cares the Crapple App store has thousands of USELESS and CRAPPY apps? A few useful apps is all one needs.
@Jah Bless: I used skydrive for my phones (first a wp7.5 then a wp8) and loaded them on that way. You could also point your phone at a local exchange server, mail the key to the phone's user and download it over an internal wifi connection. Once you've installed the key you can then set it up for internet hosted push email.
I'm sure there are other ways, but these are the only ones I've tried.
@Posted Tuesday 22nd January 2013 13:08 GMT
Anonymous Coward
Let me explain straight away: I want to put t the damn bloddy certs on the phone, not in the sky high nor a wacky wi-fi network that don't exist for many reasons security included. So, whats my point? If Windows Phone its the next big thing, how on Earth I can't upload the stupid certs on the phone using the Zune software for example?*SIGH*....
and you want everyone else to make the same mistake... we get that...
I have several Windows Phones here (as dev units), and I would never use one for real use, they are simply too buggy, rubbish battery life, and no apps. Really given a Nexus4 is so cheap, there is absolutely NO reason to own any of the Lumia range.
Bit off topic, but I wonder how long it will be until hardware piracy will become the vogue?
I remember the days before broadband, if you wanted some dodgy software there were people over in Asia ready and willing to sell you DVD's of pirated apps and games. I remember being able to email some dude over in Indonesia and get a jiffy bag full of 'HK Silvers' for the PSX as well as Windows apps.
With 3D printers becoming more and more accessible to the ordinary person, I wonder how long it will be until we can print our own knock-off iPhone clones, without having to buy them from Chinese websites?
>"How long 'till we see knock off lego."
You'd have a helluva job... Lego is injection moulded to very high tolerances. I did stumble across a tech website recently that plotted the standard deviation for Lego bricks made in different decades. Making Lego bricks is the very opposite of what you'd want a 3D printer for.
Ohhh, I see- 'adaptor bricks' to allow different brands of construction kit to be used together! Nice.
Yeah, making individual parts to be used with (or replace broken parts of) existing manufactured products is exactly what 3D printing is good for.
(though still not for making thousands of identical units, which is what I thought was meant)